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Is there ANYBODY on this list working for a company (or other organization) that has:
- started up with an IT model of dedicated desktop terminals connecting to cloud-based (SaaS) apps and data
- switched over to dedicated desktop terminal workstations (as in the above point) from the previous model of individual PCs and locally installed software?
Or, if nobody has first-hand experience, does your employer deal with such an entity?
This is kind of a settle-an-argument request that comes out of a discussion among developers, architects, PLM ... and me... where someone noted that DELL had recently seen fit to buy WYSE (maker of terminals, since back-in-the-day).
SOMEthing has kept Wyse alive all these years, and now SOMEthing has made them attractive to a player the size of DELL (when for the past 20 years, that was not the case).
On the surface, it looks like the return of the IT-Dept. glory days, with a locked-down, un-(user-)modifiable terminal on every desk, connecting to rigidly managed and centrally controlled software instances - i.e., the mainframe and satellites model , but more scalable. Or, if you will, the kiosk model.
But of course, we _talk_ about that every few months, but most of us still run SW locally or use a general-purpose PC (laptop?) to connect to SaaS (if we do), and not a company-issued one-note terminal. . . or. . . is that changing?
I don't see that such a sea-change would mean a massive change in documentation, except that install guides would go away.
Discussion? Is your company doing the terminal thing, now? Are they going to? Does your employer have any suppliers or customers that use terminals?
Or even... is somebody on the list working for DELL-Wyse and wouldn't mind saying a few words on the topic?
-k
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